The Self Led Woman Podcast: emotional eating and nervous system healing for self-leadership

There's a conversation happening right now about weight loss medications. And almost everyone is either for them or against them.

But that's not the conversation I'm interested in.

What I'm curious about is what's actually happening in the brain and the nervous system when people take these medications. Because when you start looking at the research, what you find isn't just about appetite. It's about regulation. It's about what it f...

What if the body you've been at war with has actually been trying to protect you this whole time?

In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Ann Saffi Biasetti, transpersonal psychologist, somatic psychotherapist, and author of Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm, releasing July 21st 2026. Ann has been working in the space of eating disorders and trauma recovery for over 35 years, and this conversation is one I've genuinely been looking forw...

In this episode, I share a deeply personal story about emotional eating, bingeing, loneliness, shame, and the nervous system patterns underneath it all.

I take you back to my late 20s, living alone in Melbourne during a cold winter while working in a high stress banking environment that left me emotionally exhausted and completely dysregulated by the end of the day.

What looked like “food issues” on the surface was never ...

There's a question I come back to again and again in sessions with clients.

Is this actually your belief, or is it something you inherited?

So much of what women carry around food, their bodies, visibility, and taking up space was never consciously chosen. It was absorbed. Passed down through generations of women adapting to environments where being smaller, quieter, more agreeable, and less visible was genuinely safer.

In this episod...

How long have you known that your relationship with food or your body is something you want to change?

Not how long you’ve been trying.How long you’ve known.

In this episode, I’m talking about the hidden cost of tolerating emotional eating, body obsession, self criticism, and the constant mental noise around food.

Because for many women, the issue isn’t a lack of awareness.It’s that the pattern has become...

In this episode, I’m joined by Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapist Ivana Legnerova for a deeply compassionate conversation about emotional eating, control, and healing your relationship with food.

Ivana specialises in working with eating disorders, including emotional eating, under-eating, perfectionism, and self-sabotage. Together, we explore how these patterns are not failures, but protective parts of your system trying ...

A woman said something to me recently that I hear all the time.

“I already know where this comes from. I know it’s my childhood. I know it’s because of trauma.”

And then she paused and said something incredibly honest.

“But I’m still doing it.”

She still finds herself standing in the kitchen late at night, opening the cupboard and eating something even though part of her is thinking:

Why am I do...

For years I believed my emotional eating was a discipline problem.

So I tried everything to fix it.

I tried hypnotherapy.
 Acupuncture.
 Kinesiology.
 Past life regression.
 Affirmations on my walls.
 Personal trainers.
 High protein diets.
 Low carb diets.
 Intuitive eating.
 Juice cleanses.
 The lemon detox diet.
 Running a marathon.
 Bl...

When people talk about emotional eating, the conversation usually focuses on food.

Cravings. Discipline. Willpower.

But when I work with women around emotional eating, the pattern rarely begins with food at all.

It often begins in a moment where something didn’t sit right. A comment that hurt. A boundary that was crossed. A moment where you felt dismissed, unseen, or taken for granted.

And instead of expressing what you felt, you...

In this episode, I’m joined by depth psychologist and eating disorder specialist Dr Anita Johnston, author of Eating in the Light of the Moon, for a powerful conversation that will completely shift the way you understand emotional eating and your relationship with food.

We explore why struggles with food and body image are rarely about food itself, and what these patterns are actually trying to communicate beneath the surface.

...

In this episode, I talk about something that might surprise people who are new to my work.

Even though I work with women who struggle with emotional eating, food, and their bodies, weight loss is never the goal of this work.

And there are important reasons for that.

We already live in a culture that constantly tells women their bodies need to be smaller, better, or fixed in some way. Diet culture, wellness marketing, and the fitness i...

In this episode, I share something deeply personal about my own journey with mental health.

At 35, I was diagnosed with bipolar type 2. At the time, it felt like a life sentence. I was told I would likely need medication for the rest of my life and that mood instability would always be something I had to manage.

For years before that diagnosis, I had experienced cycles of depression alongside periods of elevated energy, creativity an...

In this episode, I introduce a concept that can completely change the way you understand your appetite.

It’s called developmental hunger.

Many women believe their hunger means something is wrong with them. They tell themselves they have no discipline, that they’re always hungry, or that they can never feel satisfied around food.

But what if the hunger isn’t actually about food at all?

In this episode, I explore how un...

In this episode, I’m joined by Accredited Practising Dietitian and Credentialled Eating Disorder Clinician Kiah Paetz for a deeply compassionate conversation about healing your relationship with food.

Kiah specialises in supporting people experiencing eating disorders, disordered eating, food anxiety, and neurodivergence through a non diet, weight neutral approach. In this conversation, she shares her own recovery journey with...

In this episode, I’m talking about what I believe is the missing piece in emotional eating recovery and it’s not more discipline, willpower, or another plan.

It’s support.

So many women are trying to heal emotional eating, binge eating, food noise, restriction, body checking, and constant bargaining with food all on their own. On the outside, they look like they have it together. But underneath, there’s shame,...

In this episode, we’re talking about food cravings and what they actually mean.

Most women have been taught to see cravings as a lack of discipline or willpower. But cravings aren’t random and they aren’t a personal failure. They’re information from your body and your nervous system.

Sometimes cravings are physical. Your body might need more food, more carbohydrates, more magnesium, or simply more rest.

But cra...

If you’ve tried plans, tracking, food rules, mindset work, resets, “I’ll start again Monday” — and you still end up back in the same loop… this episode is going to hit.

Because emotional eating isn’t a behaviour problem.

And the reason it keeps coming back isn’t because you lack discipline.

It’s because it’s a survival strategy.

In this episode, I unpack:

• Why most wellness...

In this episode, I’m joined by UK-certified naturopath and yoga teacher Lottie Davies for a grounded and deeply validating conversation about hormones, cravings, nervous system healing, and cyclical living.

We explore what it actually means to reconnect to your body — not through control, restriction, or more rules — but through understanding your natural rhythms.

Inside this conversation, we unpack:

–  Wh...

Recently I took time off Instagram and it changed a lot more than I expected.

It didn’t just make me less distracted. It changed the level of presence I have in my relationship. It shifted my creativity. It brought back gratitude in a way I wasn’t even trying to practice. And it also showed me something confronting about my inner critic, my appearance, and how distorted our perception becomes when we’re constantly ...